Original subtitles

Hey, Rhea. Big case today?

Nothin' I haven't seen before.

Charles, took care of that parking ticket for ya.

Gee, thanks, Rhea!

And I got your public urination too, Gary.

Wow, you're the best!

You know, I've got an enlarged prostate...

Don't care why, just happy to help.

Oh. Hey. Oh, you don't have to stand.

I'm a lawyer, not a judge.

I know, I'm just nervous.

I get it, but their case is flimsy at best.

They didn't find enough coke on you to prove

that you were selling, and the cop who arrested you

was suspended for lying on the stand.

I am confident we can convince a jury

that you're not guilty. Just trust the system.

Actually, our justice system is riddled with flaws.

Oh, come on! Right on time.

I'm Adam Conover,

and I declare this "Adam Ruins Everything."

Adam, look, this is my job,

and I'm begging you, as your sister,

please do not do this.

Kendra's case is about to go to trial.

And, look, I've got it under control.

Just relax. Or, be very worried,

because our justice system

is way less impartial than we like to think.

Adam, I'm serious!

Kendra's freedom is on the line. Please stop scaring her.

Nope, I knew it.

The system is gonna screw me.

They throw innocent people in jail

while some old lady who spills hot coffee

on herself gets a million bucks.

Ah, yes, the famous

McDonald's hot coffee lawsuit.

That case was terrible,

but not for the reason you think.

In fact, everything you've heard about it is wrong.

Tell me,

what do you think happened in that case?

So, there was this greedy lady,

and she was all...

I want money. My ethics are questionable.

So, she gets a coffee

at McDonalds, but she's like...

I'm too dumb to know that coffee is hot.

And she's driving all crazy.

And she spills a little on her lap.

Then she's all like...

Boo hoo! I'm suing McDonalds!

I deserve money for being stupid.

And now, she's a millionaire,

and probably owns the Clippers or whatever.

Oof! Sorry, all of that is wrong...

The facts, the outcome,

and especially that voice. Hey!

A strong choice is better than no choice at all.

Here's what actually happened.

Stella Liebeck was a 79-year-old woman

whose grandson drove her to McDonalds.

She was in a parked car holding hot coffee

in her lap when it spilled.

Now, Stella openly admitted

that the spill was her mistake,

but the results were horrifying.

She had third degree burns on her legs and genitals,

and she went into shock.

She had to undergo painful skin graft operations,

and her surgeon said it was one

of the worst cases he had ever seen.

Stella was permanently disfigured and nearly died.

Third degree burns? How is that possible?

No one serves coffee that hot.

You're right. Only a clown would.

The reason Stella's injuries were so severe

is that McDonalds was serving coffee

at up to 190 degrees.

That's almost boiling!

McDonalds themselves even admitted that

at that temperature, their coffee was a hazard.

In fact, in the decade prior,

over 700 people notified McDonalds

that they had been burned by their coffee.

Holy crow!

The real irony is,

Stella didn't even want to go to court.

She just wanted McDonalds to help pay

her $20,000 in out-of-pocket medical expenses.

But after making her wait for six months,

they only offered her 800 bucks.

Stella tried to get McDonalds to settle.

She even agreed to mediation.

But McDonalds wouldn't budge.

They gave her no choice but to go to court.

So when the jury heard Stella's story,

they found that McDonalds had acted so irresponsibly,

they had to be punished.

They burned 700 people?

This has gotta stop!

Let's fine them two days' coffee sales.

That's 2.7 million.

That ought to teach 'em a lesson.

It does. Robble-robble.

And, it worked.

In the end, Stella settled for less than 600 grand.

But that was enough to get McDonalds

to lower their temperature and stop burning people.

This was an incredibly rare case where

a working-class victim actually beat

a huge team of corporate lawyers

and made the world a better place.

Wow, how do I not know about this?

Because those corporate lawyers

are really good at their jobs.

They spent years running a disinformation campaign

to convince Americans that there was

"an epidemic of frivolous lawsuits."

And the media bought it.

It seems she was holding a cup

between her legs while driving.

Now she claims she broke her nose

on the sneeze guard at the Sizzler

bending over looking at the chickpeas.

You get me one coffee drinker on that jury,

you're gonna walk out of there a rich man.

Plasma getting bigger, Jesus getting smaller

Spill a cup of coffee, make a million dollars

And because of this false narrative,

the witch hunt against "frivolous lawsuits"

continues to this day.

Coffee's hot, suing's not.

Lawsuits never should be brought.

Coffee's hot, suing's not.

Wow, they're really mad.

Except that that anger is not real.

These protests have been organized and sponsored

by large corporations.

Kendra, this Michael McCann,

he's a professor of law and politics

at the University of Washington

and a co-author of distorting the law.

Kendra, for the last several decades,

large corporations afraid of being sued

for making unsafe products

create front groups like "Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse"

to try and turn public opinion against lawsuits.

This included companies like Pfizer and Texaco

and big tobacco companies like Philip Morris.

Philip Morris?

Yeah, and by spreading this false story,

they got everyone to believe

that silly lawsuits were rampant.

And nothing could be further from the truth.

The best social science evidence

shows that the number of personal injury lawsuits

in recent decades has declined.

And the median payout is only $55,000.

Uh-oh! They smell the money.

I better get out of here. Bye.

Thanks, Michael.

These mother falcon companies

dragged an old lady through the mud

so that we won't be able to sue them anymore?

Yeah. This story is insane.

McDonalds had a policy that almost killed someone

and it took Stella's lawsuit to change it.

She should be considered a hero.

But because of the companies, we treat her like a punch-line.

Okay, are you two done talking about civil court cases?

Because Kendra's case is in criminal court.

It's a completely different system,

the one I happen to know quite a bit about.

She has a great case

and a jury is gonna be very responsive to it.

Oh, they're a ton of problems with jury trials.

If you do another act, I swear to gull...

Sorry, it's happening. We'll be right back.

Every wonder why some people have

photographic memories?

Well, memorize this.

Photographic memories don't exist.

Many people believe that there are folks out there

whose minds can perfectly remember

a mental snap shot.

But when scientists actually test those people,

they always come up short.

Even though savants whose brains come close...

...still mess up.

In 1970, a Harvard professor published a breakthrough study

that seemed to prove his student had a photographic memory.

He showed her a random pattern of 10,000 dots to one eye.

And then a day later,

showed another pattern of dots to her other eye.

He claimed she was able to recall the separate patterns

and fuse them in her mind to create a 3-D image.

Isn't that amazing?

Expect the professor then married his subject.

She refused to be tested again

which made the study majorly suspect.

So how can we explain incredible feats of memory

like people who can memorize entire books?

One explanation is that these people

have just mastered mnemonic techniques.

It's impressive, but it's not photographic.

War and... War and...

Oh, shucks, I forgot the name of the book.

The truth is there is no concrete evidence

that anyone has a photographic memory.

Hey, I know you from TV.

Conan O'Brien, right?

Kendra, hi!

Ooh. How you've been?

You know, in jail.

Okay, well, we are gonna take care of that today.

Okay, Adam's sister's great.

She's the good sibling.

Okay, the trial's about to start.

But stay calm, I've got this.

And seriously, no more interruptions.

I would never.

All rise for Judge Kurt.

All right, everybody sit down.

Let's see... what we got here.

Uh-huh.

Guilty.

I'm just kidding, I'm just... You should see your face though.

All right, let's get the jury in here.

Whoa, is that that Adam Conover from "Adam Knows Best"?

That's my favorite web series, man.

Hey! You know what you got to do a skit about?

Bats! Huh?

They're not really awake at night.

Or maybe they are, I don't know, you tell me.

That's your job, that's not mine.

I'm a judge, you're Adam.

Man... are you doing one right now?

You're doing one right now.

Oh, my God, this is so exciting, in my courtroom!

What is it about?

Tell me, Adam. Come on, spill the beans, Adam.

Spill the beans.

Well, if the judge insists.

The jury system is rife with bias.

Your Honor, no. Objection.

Sustain... uh, overruled.

I get those confused a lot. Anyway, I want to hear this.

Me too.

Kendra, don't listen to Adam.

Trail by jury is the cornerstone of our democracy's legal system.

In America, your fate isn't decided by a dictator or a king.

Justice is served by a jury of your peers.

Fellow citizens just like you.

Well, if they're just like us,

then they're gonna make a lot of mistakes.

It is a testament to democracy that our justice system

gives such awesome power to average citizens.

But that also means that our juries

are subject to the same biases

we carry with us in everyday life.

Like what?

Like the way that people in my building

are biased against me for owning ferrets?

Uh, not quite.

But one study did find that juries recommend

more lenient sentences to attractive defendants.

The only thing I steal are... women's hearts.

Also sometimes purses.

"Hot" guilty.

I mean, not guilty.

And juries actually find defendants guilty less often

if they're wearing glasses.

It's known as the nerd defense.

What a nerd, I bet he wasn't even invited to the crime.

I mean, who's his getaway driver?

His mom.

Sick burn, bro.

Seriously, dude's a wiener. Not guilty.

These biases are so powerful

there's actually an entire industry

of highly paid trial consultants

who help lawyers learn and exploit them.

No, no, no.

Our research shows you're most likely convict

with black men over 65, Mexican babies,

and all people named Jackie.

Hmm. Who Jackie?

The rest of you are dismissed.

In some cases, the consultants

even screen potential juror's Facebook pages

to decide who to keep and who to send home.

Facebook says his favorite Batman is Val Kilmer.

What terrible judgement.

We have to have him on the jury.

These biases may sound trivial,

but the effect they have on cases can be devastating.

As my expert witness, I now call to the stand

law professor Adam Benforado.

I do.

I object!

You can't call anyone to the stand.

You're not a lawyer, you're a TV clown.

I'll allow it. Proceed, TV clown.

Professor Benforado, is it not true

that you have written a book entitled

"Unfair, the New Science of Criminal Injustice"?

Yes, my research is all about

the hidden biases in our legal system.

For example, political biases can be far more influential

on the outcome of a case than what the law actually says.

So in date rape cases,

older more conservative women are far more likely to acquit

than younger more liberal women

regardless of how the law actually defines rape.

Hmm. So justice is not in fact blind.

Am I right, Professor? Sadly, you are.

Our juries all see the world through the tinted lens

of their own biases,

which is one of the reasons why black defendants

fare so much worse in our system than white defendants.

We've all been exposed to damaging stereotypes

that link blackness with crime and violence.

This can lead juries to assign African American defendants

longer sentences than white defendants

because they implicitly see them as more of a threat.

And is there not today a half a billion dollar industry

dedicated to exploiting those biases?

Bingo. Lawyers pay trial consultants huge sums

to ensure that they have the most biased juries possible

in their favor,

which means that a case can be won

based on the selection of the jury

before the trial even begins.

I'm losing it here, guys.

Wha... the jury is supposed to take the trial seriously.

Well, we sure don't encourage them to.

Virtually no one takes jury duty seriously,

including the government.

Oh, we don't?

What'cha talkin' about, Adam?

In some states, jury duty pays as little as $4 an hour.

We actually pay the people handing out death sentences

less than the people handing out fast food.

Would you like a verdict with that?

Pay is so low,

we treat jury duty like it's some sort of punishment.

In some cities the turn out is so bad,

they've had to postpone murder trials.

Trial postponed?

Great, got a few more hours to kill.

And even when people do show up,

they'll say just about anything to get out of it.

Sorry, I can't be on the jury

because I've been murdered before.

Think about that.

Your fate is being decided by a random person

who's paid poverty wages

and would rather be doing literally anything else.

So ask yourself,

is it any wonder they fall back on irrational biases?

Hey! Order in the court! Come on, now!

I'll never get a fair trial.

I might as well head back to prison right now.

Enough!

Whoa! You got powers too.

Yeah, because he doesn't know what he's talking about.

And I do.

This is amazing.

Adam, you have no idea what's actually unfair

about the legal system.

And I'm gonna show you... right after this.

Oh-ho, damn. That was good act tease.

All clear.

Ever wonder exactly why we have a Secret Service?

Uh, yeah, to stop the president from getting "ka-blamed"

by a terrorist in Air Force One.

Nope.

Originally the Secret Service had nothing to do

with protecting the president

and everything to do with protecting the moola.

It all started back in the 1800s

when each bank had to design it's own money.

For my bank, I'm thinking sequins.

Very on trend.

The designs were so different

it was incredibly easy to counterfeit money.

Over one third of the nation's bills were fake.

I like to cash in my billon dollar bill, please.

It's legit because it says legit on it.

So on April 14th, 1865,

Abraham Lincoln created the Secret Service.

Gentlemen, you all have only one job:

to stop counterfeit bills.

Now, I've got a show to get to.

Nobody spoil the ending, but I hear someone dies.

Unfortunately, he should've given them two jobs

because John Wilkes Booth assassinated him

that exact same day.

I feel like there's something we should be doing.

Even after Lincoln's assassination,

the Secret Services' duties still didn't include

protecting the president.

It wasn't until after the deaths of Lincoln in 1865,

James Garfield in 1881, and William McKinley in 1901

that anyone was like,

"Hey, maybe you should be protecting this guy."

Uh, sorry, sirs.

Your Honor, Adam has presented his case.

Now, I deserve the chance to present mine

and set the record straight.

Oooh. One of those twists where Adam gets taught something?

Oh-ho, this has been done, but I'll allow it.

What the...

Oh wow.

Adam, all your little nit-picks so far

have missed the point entirely.

Of course, the system isn't perfect.

But I know that firsthand because I'm a public defender.

Do you know what that is?

Oh, well, I know that a defendant

must be provided counsel as per the 1963 Supreme Court...

No. Do you what it's like in reality?

It means when someone can't afford counsel,

we defend them.

Over 80% of people charged with a crime

require our help.

That's why you're always here.

I, uh, just thought you were really into wood paneling.

The fact is the deck is stacked against us and our clients

in every single case.

First of all,

there's just straight-up aren't enough of us doing this work.

Because doing this job means turning down a lucrative career.

On average, lawyers at big private firms

earn up to double what we make.

It's a very generous offer but no.

I'm going to help people.

Aww, but I already to put all the money in the brief case.

Well, I guess it's useless now.

Instead, public defenders earn peanuts

and our case loads are ridiculous.

Oh, this is a lot of work for one year.

That's just one week.

Some of us have over 2,000 cases a year.

At that rate, it's impossible

to spend enough time on each case.

One public defender in Minnesota

only had about 12 minutes per client.

After review of the discovery,

I believe we can administrate a claim

of innocence to the state of prosecutorial misconduct

and insufficient evidence.

Huh?

Sorry, I got another client.

In one case, a public defender

had to represent multiple people facing life sentences

the same week they passed the bar exam.

Sir, I'm going to crack prosecution's case wide open.

Also, can you buy me some beer?

Holy crow, why are you so under staffed?

Because we're also under funded,

especially compared to the other side.

In California,

for every one dollar spent on the prosecution

only 53 cents is spent on indigent defense.

In 2007, prosecutors received $3.5 billion more

than public defenders.

3.5 billion?

That's as many hours as my wife spends in the bathroom.

Is that funny? I'm taking a stand up class.

Yeesh. Well, maybe they work more cases.

Yeah, a few more, but not enough to justify

the fact that they have five times the staff we do.

I mean, think about how hard it is to play defense

when it's five on one.

And those fancy trail consultants you were talking about,

we can't afford them.

Some demand $300,000 just to work one case.

Call me when you start doing corporate law... poor boy.

Public defenders are so under funded,

New Orleans even had to start refusing new cases.

And in South Dakota,

they actually charge people for public defenders.

I can't afford a lawyer. You'll provide one, right?

Yup, your free lawyer will cost you $92 an hour.

Wait, so we guarantee attorneys

to people too poor to afford them,

then charge them for those very attorneys?

That's unconscionable.

Yeah, that's why I wasn't impressed

by all the little flaws you've been pointing out

because this problem dwarfs all of them.

The government setup a justice system

where the prosecution and defense compete to win cases

then systematically provided one side with massive resources

while starving the other.

The entire game is rigged against us.

So the system is more broken than he said?

You're not making me feel any better.

Yeah, you're right, it is broken.

But you don't fix a broken carbonator

by complaining about it or throwing the entire car out.

You put your head down and you get your hands dirty.

That's why I do this job.

So, yeah, I know that juries are biased

towards people with glasses.

That's why I put Kendra in glasses today.

Oh, yeah.

And I know that the press

don't always get the story straight,

so that's why I suck up to the local beat reporter.

Wait, so you don't really like my jam band?

And I know the prosecution have five times the staff,

that's why I work five times as hard.

The justice system isn't perfect.

That's because it's made up of people

and people aren't perfect either.

But you want to know why I trust the system?

It's because I know there are people just like me

working every single day to make it better.

It's easy to stand in front of a camera

and rattle off criticisms

while you wait for a perfect world

to fall in your lap.

But while you do that,

I'm gonna dig in, work my ass off,

and make sure your innocent friend

doesn't go to prison.

So how about you let me do that?

Woof! Yes!

Ha! Hatchy matchy.

Now that is some of the best damn lawyer talk

I've ever heard.

Hey, maybe the entire premise

of your show is flawed, huh, Adam?

All right, let's get this trial on the road.

I think if we beat feet,

we can get a verdict in three minutes.

Has the jury reached a verdict?

We have, Your Honor.

We find the defendant...

Kendra Perkins...

not guilty.

Oh man, great, great.

All right, well, we can all go home.

Expect for you, Kendra, you'll be getting the chair.

Come on, I'm kidding! I'm kidding!

All right, Judge Kurt out.

I don't know how to thank you.

You don't have to, I'm honored to do it.

Oh.

Got to run to another case.

You know how things are.

Congrats, guys

I'm so excited!

Tomorrow, I get a job.

Tonight, I get a drink.

Let's get the French out of here.

You coming, Adam?

No, you two go ahead.

I don't really think I deserve to come.

Why are you saying that?

Rhea's right.

I didn't do anything to help.

All I do is talk about what's wrong.

I know every reason the justice system is broken,

but I never do anything to fix it.

Oh, were you not just paying attention?

Everyone can make a difference, you said that.

I did? Sometimes I zone out while I'm talking.

Jury duty.

Every few years, every American is giving the chance

to take part in the system.

For that one case,

you have the power to fix these problems.

All you have to do is show up, check your biases,

and make sure you hear both sides out.

Oh, yeah, wow.

That's actually really cool.

Yeah, and will you stop mopping about yourself?

I just won my trial, you owe me a shot or two.

Yeah, let's get "nootched"!

What does that mean?

Oh, it's a new word I'm trying out for drunk.

You know, so you can be like, "Oh, sorry, man.

Last night I was nootched."

You know, or you can be like, "Oh, I nootched texted him."

Hey, and so then I say, "3.5 billion,

that's how many years my wife spends in the bathroom."

You're guilty of sucking!

Sheesh. Rough crowd.

.srt Extracted, Resynced by Dan4Jem, XII.MMXVI

Repair and Synchronization by Easy Subtitles Synchronizer 1.0.0.0